


The Up Side of Down

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: Patch Works [14]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Cruciamentum, Dark Character, Dark Past, Developing Relationship, Emotional Distance, Emotional Intimacy, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Lies, Scary Giles, Secrets, Self-Hatred, Self-Protection, The Wheel Keeps on turnin'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The closer Giles gets to Buffy, the more alone he feels with his secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Up Side of Down

Giles raised his head, grinning smugly. “The wisdom of experience is good for more than fighting vampires, you know,” he informed her, wrapping her in his arms again. Buffy shifted uncomfortably in his embrace. He sighed. “You don’t like to be reminded,” he surmised.

“That you’ve obviously had more lovers than I’ve had birthdays?” she said, trying not to sound rankled even though she clearly was. “Why wouldn’t I want to be reminded of that?”

“Well I can’t actually stop being forty-seven, you know,” he pointed out, somewhere between a defense and an apology.

“Yeah, you can,” she teased, “at some point in the next year, you’ll start being forty-eight.”

“Not for eleven and a half months, thank you very much,” he retorted, half seriously. “I’m near enough the edge of the cliff without you hurrying me along.”

“Sorry,” she apologized, more than half seriously “old habits.  When is your birthday, anyway?”

“It’s the twentieth of February, actually,” he admitted recicently, hoping she wouldn't make too much of a fuss about it.

“Oh,” said Buffy. “And I thought my last birthday sucked.”

He sighed, pulling her a little closer. “It had its moments,” he pointed out. She laid her head on his chest and mercifully refrained from pointing out that hers had too. “The wheel turns,” he said contemplatively, “but it’s not constant. Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re still on the way down or already coming back up.”

She sighed too. “Sometimes I think we’re doing both at the same time. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I _like_ where my life is heading, or where I think it’s heading, but I have this feeling... ‘it’s going to get darker before it gets lighter,’ you know?”

He smiled, “We’re certainly not traveling the path of least resistance,” he agreed.

“Well,” she said, snuggling closer against him, “whatever we have to deal with with my mom or the Government or the Council or whoever, at least I have you to watch my back.” He didn’t exactly pull away. He didn’t exactly react at all. He just sort of, didn’t snuggle back quite as much as she might have expected. Was something wrong or was she just being insecure? He ran a hand through her hair affectionately and sighed oddly regretfully.

She turned to look at him skeptically. “What gives?” she said.

He blinked at her and his brow furrowed a little. “What do you mean?” he asked seeming genuinely, innocently puzzled. He cursed himself simultaneously for letting her have an inkling of what he was feeling and for not telling her why. The up side of being truly close to someone, he realized, is also the down side. They get behind your shields with you. You tell them things without meaning to. Ideally that ought to be okay. Because there ought to be absolute loyalty there, well founded, unreserved trust.

But he was still a man with two masters. He still didn’t know what to do about it. Idly, he thought that one useful step he could take might be to murder Quentin Travers, and possibly his father, perhaps with a blunt interment of some sort. But, ethical and practical difficulties aside, that ‘solution’ didn’t really get at the heart of the problem. Even if the test were to be undertaken in absolute good faith, it was still life and death information that he was choosing to keep from her.

Buffy cocked her head and looked uncomfortable, doubting her own perception exactly as he intended her to, resenting her inability to make the evidence of her senses tally exactly, yet not feeling confident enough to feel entitled to her resentment. “I don’t know,” she said finally, doubtfully, “it just seemed like...” She was too embarrassed to come out and say that—without any evidence she could put her finger on—she had gotten the impression that he was not one hundred percent willing to commit to the proposition that he had her back. She felt guilty, like she wasn’t giving him the trust he’d earned for thirteen months of reliable guidance and support, like she wasn’t giving him the loyalty implied in accepting the ring on her finger.

He kissed her and held her reassuringly. “I’m right here,” he told her, “no matter how dark it gets. We’ll get through it together.” He was sorry. He truly was. But, for the time being, he continued to choose to deceive her, to maintain the situation status quo ante, telling himself he could make a different decision later as better options presented themselves. He had almost a year, after all, to find a way through, out of, or around the problem.


End file.
